


Perhaps

by nerdwearingpearls



Category: Newsflesh Trilogy - Mira Grant
Genre: F/M, Sibling Incest
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-06-13
Updated: 2013-06-13
Packaged: 2017-12-14 20:14:24
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 442
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/840930
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/nerdwearingpearls/pseuds/nerdwearingpearls
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Post-Blackout, Spoilers Ahead</p><p>Shaun contemplates a question.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Perhaps

Mahir had asked him once, in that period after he realized their grief for George was more similar than he could have imagined and before she had come back to them, whether they had ever talked about it. 

They had, shortly after George had received her first implant. At the time, Shaun had thought it would be a grand adventure, the ultimate fuck you to the Masons, if only they could do it without risking their own reputations in the process. George had just looked at him with her signature "Are you fucking out of your mind?" eyebrow raise. Genetic non-relatedness aside, they were still legally siblings and it would complicate things, to say the least.

Now all he can think about is how it would feel to be back in their van. Except this time, it isn't George at the end of a barrel but their child. Some wonderful amalgamation of their unknown genetic origins. He can imagine her, with George's smirk and his shaggy brown hair, bobbed just to short to grab, running off towards danger and adventure. Or him, with his grin and buzzed hair streaked blond and brown, curling if it ever got long enough, typing away in front of a wall of screens. And he's back in the van looking at the back of his child's head knowing that any minute now he will have to pull the trigger. His world would end all over again, maybe even worse this time, knowing that he brought a child into this world only to have to take them out of it.

He hasn't asked her about it, this new George. He wonders if the 3% of difference would have changed her opinion about children. He's certainly noticed other changes; she's most obviously better at lying and more prone to tears. But there are other, more subtle differences, like when he mentions a memory he can tell she has only glimpses of.

Sometimes he wonders still if they should. Maybe someday, maybe after Dr. Shoji and Dr. Kimberley figure out a vaccine. They could certainly do a better job than the Masons. Or maybe they wouldn't. Maybe their connection would leave them unable to welcome a third member into the fold. Certainly, a life this far off the grid with no other connections, virtual or in the flesh, is no way to raise a child. 

Maybe if they were this George and that Shaun it would be different. Maybe they would be willing to risk the heartbreak for the possibility of joy. But as it stands, they are this George and this Shaun, facing towards the rest of their lives.

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: Characters are property of Mira Grant/Seanan McGuire
> 
> Author's Notes: This came out of me wondering for a bit about George and Shaun having children and lamenting the lack of Newsflesh fanfic, after having devoured every bit of it that I could find. I even got as far as writing a post by Mahir in my head announcing the creation of the Shoji-Connolly vaccine to prevent Kellis-Amberlee amplification in cases of contact with the live virus. However, no matter what reasoning I thought through, I just couldn't make it make sense for them and realized I was putting my own desires onto characters. So then I decided I would just write Shaun contemplating a bit. I imagine post-Blackout Shaun as regaining much of the joie de vivre we see in him in the beginning of Feed but being far more prone to bouts of quiet moodiness than before. Also, credit for my desire to see Mahir and Shaun get together out of grief goes to [Ryssa](http://avagueambitioninyourdirection.tumblr.com/). This is a slight AU in that I like to think of it as a world where Shaun went to Mahir to grieve rather than Becks, with subsequently different results.


End file.
